The Madras High Court on Thursday stayed all further proceedings in a case filed against BJP Tamil Nadu president K. Annamalai for claiming that it was a Christian missionary NGO that filed the first case before the Supreme Court seeking a ban on bursting of crackers during Deepavali. Justice G. Jayachandran granted the interim stay for four weeks and ordered notice, returnable by January 4, to the complainant, V. Piyush. The orders were passed on a petition filed by the politician to quash the private complaint pending before Salem Judicial Magistrate IV.
The quash petitioner accused the complainant of having twisted an interview that he had given to a YouTube channel in October 2022 for the purpose of filing the complaint for the charges under Sections 153A (promoting enmity between different groups) and 505 (public mischief) of the Indian Penal Code. Pointing out that the interview was given over a year ago and 60,000 people had watched it on YouTube, the petitioner said no one from the Christian community had raised any objection so far, and no disturbance to public tranquillity had been reported because of it.
